An Ironic Echo
by Nightlingbolt
Summary: Angry at Natsu's comments about her sex appeal, she takes a bet to seduce Laxus. But when she does, he flashes back to something derogatory he said about her. What Laxus can't figure out is why, out of all the nasty things he's said, that one incident triggers something in him? LaxLu, but other pairings may crop up. Also, genre may be inconsistent.


**Hey guys, new story! Welcome to this random LaxLu plotbunny I had, "An Ironic Echo." Hopefully the title makes sense, but if one of you geniuses has a better idea for a title, I'm all for it.**

**So, confession time: I've always wanted to give LaxLu a go, mostly because I'm not really a fan of the tropes present in most LaxLu stories. For starters, I imagine Laxus to be only as social as he needs to be to function in the guild, and a major grump. So no "Blondie" or cockiness (Flare is the only one allowed to call Lucy "Blondie" as far as I'm concerned, but that's neither here nor there.**

**Also, this takes place after the Tartaros arc as evidenced from Gray being a Devil Slayer. I dunno how long, let's just say long enough for everyone to come to grips with everything that's happened. For reference's sake, I'm posting this the day Chapter 401 comes out, so I don't know if anyone dies (namely Jellal or Igneel), so excuse me if I don't have Natsu dealing with the fallout from being E.N.D. or something. But what am I talking about? This is just supposed to be a fun story in which the universe hates Laxus! Let's get on with it already!**

**I do not own Fairy Tail or its characters, Hiro Mashima does.**

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><p>Natsu, Lucy, Erza and Happy had returned from a job and were walking towards the guild. Wendy and Gray were at Lamia Scale training with Lyon and Chelia – after Lyon discovered that Gray had learned Ice Devil Slayer magic, the older Ice mage had insisted Gray teach him to the best of his ability. Lucy had her doubts that Gray would be able to teach the magic, since even now, he knew next to nothing about it himself, but she could appreciate Lyon wanting to learn from his brother.<p>

But back to the matter at hand, Erza and Natsu had destroyed about half the town they were assigned to protect. The thought of having next to no money for rent _again_ made her angry. "And here I thought Erza would be able to _curb_ Natsu's destruction, not _enhance_ it," she muttered to herself.

"Hey, I wouldn't have _had_ to get fired up if your lame sex appeal strategy actually worked!" protested Natsu, having heard Lucy's grumblings thanks to his Dragon hearing.

"Or if Lucy had any sex appeal for the strategy to work in the first place," said Happy.

"At least I have more sex appeal than a flying blue cat and two hotheaded barbarians!" shouted Lucy in anger, not even caring if she insulted Erza.

"…Two?" Erza repeated with a mixture of indignity and confusion.

"…Damn, you got us there," said Natsu thoughtfully. "Maybe if you and Erza kissed…"

"Excuse me!" said Erza, indignity having won out. "But if I _wanted_ to kiss Lucy – which I'm not saying I do! – I would most certainly not do it as part of some harebrained sex appeal strategy!"

"See? Even Erza thinks it's stupid," said Natsu.

Lucy started fuming at this point, her original point lost in her anger at having her sex appeal questioned. "I could seduce any guy in the guild any day of the week!" she yelled.

"Sure you could," said Natsu with indifference. "If that were the case, I'd have asked you out a long time ago."

Erza, on the other hand, was willing to accept the challenge. "All right then, how about Laxus?" she suggested. "Get him to at least kiss you by the end of the night, and Natsu and I will admit you have some sex appeal."

"You too, Erza?!" fumed Lucy, feeling betrayed.

"Has it ever worked so far?" asked Erza.

"Well, there was that Dan Straight guy," Natsu remembered. "But he was nuts to begin with."

Lucy growled. "All right!" she yelled. "I'm gonna try my sex appeal on Laxus, and dammit, it's gonna work!" With that, she stormed away from her friends.

As the remaining mages watched Lucy leave, Erza spoke up. "Do you think I set too high a challenge for her?" she asked. "After all, Laxus is rather… awkward." By that she meant "antisocial," but Erza wanted to be more polite than that.

"Nah," replied Natsu. "She'll be fine. Whatever Lucy lacks in actual sex appeal, she makes up for in natural charm. Anyone would want her, just as long as she remembers to be herself."

Erza smiled at Natsu's assessment of their friend, until Happy chimed in. "But the challenge was to use her sex appeal," he said. "And Lucy does have a bad habit of overcompensating."

Natsu considered Happy's point for a moment. "She is so screwed," he decided.

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><p>"I am so screwed!" Lucy moaned. "What was I thinking? My sex appeal won't work on someone like Laxus! I mean, he's this powerful Dragon Slayer who can go toe-to-toe with Wizard Saints, and here I am with my weak Celestial Spirit magic and bony arms that can't even throw a punch and…"<p>

Suddenly, Lucy felt a palm across her face. She looked towards the source to see Virgo had summoned herself, apparently to slap her. "Virgo… did you just slap me?" she asked her Maiden spirit.

"Yes. You needed it," replied Virgo.

"Yeah… I kind of did," Lucy decided, thinking of her earlier panicking.

"Will there be punishment, Princess?" asked Virgo hopefully.

"No, of course not!" said Lucy quickly.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. She could have Virgo help pick out an alluring outfit sure to enhance her beauty to a point where even Laxus wouldn't be able to deny she was sexy. "Hey Virgo," she said. "Wanna help me pick out an outfit for tonight?"

"Of course," said Virgo dutifully.

A few minutes later, Lucy looked herself over in the mirror. This was perfect! No way could Laxus resist her in this!

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><p>Laxus took a seat at a table on the guild's second floor. He and the Raijin Tribe had just finished an easy job helping out at a retirement home, and really, interacting with all those old people had put a strain on his patience. So after taking out his annoyance on a training dummy (good thing they were rubber, because he must've poured out at least 200,000 volts), he came here to deal with the only reason he was called over.<p>

His grandfather had a mission for him – to take out a dark guild full of Lightning mages. The old man's logic had been that while anyone else would be resistant to their attacks, Laxus, as a Lightning Dragon Slayer, would be totally immune to anything they could dish out. He was supposed to leave tomorrow, and even though it was a bad idea, he decided "fuck it" and settled down for a few drinks.

About halfway through his first beer, he noticed someone coming upstairs. He was surprised to see that it was Lucy. Sure, anyone could visit the second floor since the post-Phantom renovation, but aside from his teammates and the occasional challenge from Natsu, everyone pretty much accepted it as a place where the guild's S-Class mages could be alone with their thoughts. Bearing that in mind, Laxus could think of no reason why Lucy would want to be all the way up here.

Once Lucy greeted him, he noticed exactly what the Celestial mage was wearing – a purple spaghetti-strap dress that stopped just above her knees. A far cry from her usual attire – Laxus figured either Cana or Mira put her up to this.

"So," said Laxus, trying to feign disinterest. "What brings you up to this lonely corner of the guild?"

"Oh, you know," said Lucy lightly, taking a seat next to him. "I love Fairy Tail, but sometimes I like to take a break from it all. Kind of like you do, or am I wrong?"

"Really," said Laxus. "You look like you're dressed up for a party."

"Maybe I am," Lucy said with a wink.

Laxus flinched. He was used to women giving him the eye, but no less than seven years ago, he'd pass up nearly every one of them, claiming they were either too weak of too ugly to be worth his time. And Fairy women were off-limits – Gramps had made that explicitly clear.

Not surprising considering how much of an asshole he was before being banished.

"Well, I can't say I'm all that great of a host," said Laxus.

What the fuck was that, Dreyar?!

"That's fine," said Lucy. "All we need is me…" She placed her hand on his chest. "…And you."

Now Laxus was nervous. Since arriving at Fairy Tail, Lucy had become something of the guild's Princess. If she was suggesting what he thought she was… well, he wouldn't be nearly as popular with everyone if he went through with this.

Taking a cautious sniff, his Dragon Slayer senses picked up the scent of alcohol on her. Thankfully it wasn't enough to get her drunk, but she clearly had some liquid courage.

"If you want to party with me, you should know I party hard," said Laxus.

"Maybe I like it hard," Lucy purred.

Oh, God, the purr! That was a major weakness of his when it came to women! "Just what I wanted to hear," he said, trying to keep things under control.

Lucy needed no further invitation and pressed her lips to his. She licked his lips slowly, and it was agonizing. But he wasn't about to let her dictate the encounter.

Her tongue retreated, giving Laxus an opportunity to snake his own into it. They passionately battled for dominance, neither willing to submit.

Finally, Lucy pulled away, gasping for air. "Last chance to back out, Princess," said Laxus with a sneer. Despite not wanting this to end, he didn't want to risk Lucy regretting the act, which would set not only Natsu, but Erza on him. And that would be bad.

"I'm not scared of you," said Lucy. "Tonight, I wanna be your woman."

Laxus's eyes went wide as he flashed back to Mira contacting him for help against Phantom Lord.

"_Tell her if she becomes my woman, I'll help out. And tell that geezer to hurry up and retire so he can give me the Master's position."_

"_Tell her if she becomes my woman, I'll help out."_

"_If she becomes my woman…"_

Laxus pushed Lucy away. She fell on her bottom, but neither one was too concerned with that. "Laxus?" she asked.

"…I have to go," said Laxus. "Early mission." He activated his lightning body and flew out before Lucy, or for that matter, anyone could react, leaving a dumbfounded Celestial mage in his wake.

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><p><strong>Uh-oh, Laxus is panicking! And you know that's not a good thing! Well, it is for me, because I get to mess with him! Yay!<strong>

**Next chapter will have a scene with Laxus and Mira. There's a scene I want to write involving her, but I think I'll take some time to think about it beyond that. So for now, Nightlingbolt's struck until next time.**


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